South Florida's Abiotic join the death metal race as a young band. The band, over a short time, have managed to take their brand of tech-death with shades of metalcore a rather long way in catching the ears of Metal Blade. As a band that is barely two years old one could question their prowess, but that may be a hard thing to do upon hearing their record.
The record opens with a brief piano intro before "Vermosapien," which fully introduces the listener to the band's style of tech. The song shows the band’s skills right from the jump, allowing the musicians to play a jazzy assemblage of riffs before delving into the first of many breakdowns. Within the song the band use their breakdowns as actual breaks between the technical onslaught that surrounds it. By the time the second song comes around you may think there is little to be surprised about as it opens with a beautiful solo before becoming truly nasty sounding. The song allows for a lot of jazzy and melodic clean bits to help build the song. These tricks are well used throughout the record giving the listener breathing room along with giving the songs a dramatic breadth.
The record is immaculately produced, feeling beyond clean and allowing each riff to get its moment in the sun. Many modern death metal bands rely on trying to be the heaviest and turning their records into mushy things with tints of melody here and there. This record allows for each instrument to have its space in every song. Hell, you can hear actual bass riffs on this record, which is something that most bands seem to lose while trying to get their guitars tuned lower. The vocals are recorded quite well and lets the vocals have their own place as well. Meanwhile the vocals, in and of themselves, leave something to be desired at times. As a matter of taste, the pig squeals that have been abused and overused in the deathcore genre take away from the actual breadth that the vocals have otherwise. Unlike most death metal vocalists this one uses a good mix of styles and patterns to set himself apart from the pack.
Overall the main downfall in this album would be the same thing that makes the band special: technicality. While technicality is certainly not a bad thing, it can take away from having actual songs. At times one can get lost within the songs and at other points the changes become jarring as they take the listener out of the song entirely. Simply put, what Abiotic have offered us is an extremely strong debut that shows how truly amazing the band can be. This is a great debut that is slightly rough around the edges, but is certainly worth the time and effort to hear.
